Certain prior-art methods for making Bragg gratings in optical fibers involve side-illumination of the fiber by a pair of interfering, actinic light beams. Although they are capable of producing gratings of high quality, these methods are disadvantageous because they are difficult to implement in a manufacturing environment. That is, each of these prior art methods requires interferometric systems having high mechanical stability, and/or demands rigorous control of the spatiotemporal properties of the actinic beams.